Taiwan must not become like Hong Kong, where people do not have freedom under China’s repressive rule, democracy activists in exile warned during the opening of a special exhibition in Taipei yesterday.
“We must staunchly defend our core values, and safeguard freedom and democracy in Hong Kong and Taiwan,” exhibition curator Kacey Wong (黃國才) said.
Wong urged people to remember the Hong Kong democracy advocates who rallied against legislations for tougher and stricter control on national security, and opposed China’s extradition bill, as he showcased the activists’ art pieces and hand-written letters.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The Hong Kong Human Rights Art Exhibition is to run until June 29 at the National 228 Memorial Museum.
Organizers include Hong Kong civil rights organizations, the New School for Democracy and the Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation.
The exhibition called for submissions — paintings, photographs, sculptures, visual arts productions, or other forms of cultural, artistic creation — showing the human rights situation in and personal stories of people in Hong Kong, organizers said.
Hong Kong Outlanders member Fotong (赴湯) said: “This exihibition aims to tell people about the situation in Hong Kong and how human rights have deteriorated. We must not let Taiwan become the Hong Kong of today.”
“Since imposing Chinese national security laws, Hong Kongers have been repressed and had their rights contravened every day. I have friends who are in prison and their families do not dare to talk much, because they would be prosecuted if they discussed sensitive issues,” he added.
Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲) said: “If people in Taiwan acquiesce like what happened in Hong Kong and allow themselves to be put under China’s control, we would certainly lose our sovereignty and our freedom.”
“We must learn from Hong Kong’s ‘one country, two systems’ model. People in Taiwan have freedom and we should not accept the kind of ‘peace agreement’ offered by China’s dictatorship,” Lee said.
New School for Democracy director Lai Jung-wei (賴榮偉) said that the exhibition contains paintings, letters and other forms of art and creative works.
“None of these can be put on display in Hong Kong now,” Lai said.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
RSS